Scott davis Former oakland Raiders - Writes on Charitable giving and how to evaluate the merit of each Charity

Look to third party validation to help decide if a charity is worth its salt. All or most charities will give themselves glowing self-supporting recognition. Who can blame them; they’re in the business of soliciting donations and therefore must continually wow potential donors. But you can’t just take them at their word no matter how sincere and credible their brochures and websites seem. You owe it to the causes and the people that the charities raise money for.One excellent means to judge a charity’s track record of commitment and claimed results is to read or listen to what others are saying. And the more well-established the sources are the better. So check to see if your selected charity has been covered or written about by any objective qualified outsiders. Search industry relevant publications and websites to verify your own assumptions. Check to make sure any assessments done by third parties are offering up common sense data that your charity has a history of being a results oriented operation. As you accumulate these third party reviews you should gain much more confidence in the charity’s ability to represent your donation well. Look for open lines of constituent communication. Read and listen to what those, directly involved and those directly affect by the charities efforts, are saying. What kind of quality feedback do the folks that the charity serves have to say? Charities, in my opinion, should make it easy for anyone, especially donors like you, to both provide and access openly published feedback from primary constituents. For many direct-service organizations, who the primary constituents are is clear; for others, the relevant parties may be peers, related groups, policy makers, etc. Keep digging even when feedback isn’t readily available. It will tell you quite a bit concerning important information you may not get from someone over the phone or see on the charity’s website.

Seize the opportunity to review “published” evaluation reports. It’s even better if your target organization goes through the effort to have an independent third party formally evaluate their efforts. And those reports should be published and easy to find. If it is apparent that it is increasingly difficult to find such reports you may give pause to reconsider the charity set against others in its field or area of focus. The charity should also openly share their own organizations internal thoughts on the reports for all to see.

Make sure the charity's statement of its Mission, Solicitations, and Resource Allocation are Simpatico. Make sure the charity is meeting or surpassing the claims it makes throughout its sales material and various touch points. Take an inquisitive approach to ensure the charity's written and verbal claims correspond with general “truth in advertising” standards; The content that fills their marketing materials should essentially match their actions. Are there verifiable instances and or overwhelming proof that the charity is in-deed allocating the donated funds and staff time that parallels with what their mission states? Are they allotting their time accordingly and able to prove their actual efforts are synced what they promote they are doing. On the form 990, Part III: Statement of Program Service Accomplishments, charities should accurately report their biggest programs and a breakdown of all the resulting funding that is directed toward them. It is up to you to figure out if the charity’s stated funding allocation is in step with what the charity claims made on their web site and brochures.

It doesn’t take an expert to decipher if the charity is correctly touting its achievement and using simple logic to reach its claimed results. Is there a straight forward approach the charity uses to aptly explain the issues or problems the charity is focused on? Are they offering simple understandable steps in laymen terms that they are taking to make a difference and how exactly it is being done?Keep your questions simple because the answers should be simple and clear. A few questions to consider…. Is the charity’s stated path to results making sense and are they reasonable to you? Do they provide enough evidence or examples that shows that their selected approach is achieving results you expect? Seek out the data, which should be easily accessible and then it should demonstrates succinctly that their approaches including data collection are working?More common sense topics to consider in our next post….

Its important to regularly follow up with your charity of choice to make sure they are continuing to achieve and reach the goals they say they are. You can verify the claims and promises each charity makes and ultimately keeps by checking the respective website, speaking with qualified charity representatives and by reviewing the charities form 990.

A charities purpose is to help the needy, serve a cause in question and to do so through accountable measures validating to the claims they make relevant to the target. You should find it possible to easily access proof of these goals being achieved and that the said accomplishments are being continually pursued. Don't just ask simple patent questions but feel free to go in to more dept-driven analysis and press the charity to provide answers that meet your criterion. charities that insist on simple generic feedback should always raise a red flag. These organizations owe it to their causes and have an obligation to you as you and others like you are the very reason such charities exist.

Your not just going to want to ask about standard practices such as the number of activities they are involved in or currently pursuing nor should you be satisfied with basic answers simply referring the number of people served. It is crucial that you hold charities accountable and press them to share not only what they're up to but what their capacity is for achieving the claims they represent over the long haul. Your financial contributions are used by these organizations for many things and keep the charity in business so just make sure it is being spent how you want against how they say it is being spent.

The idea of giving is a noble one to be sure. Many well-intended folks start out very excited to begin helping and simply jump in and immediately start focusing on getting help into the hands of the needy as fast as possible. Although the upsides of your efforts are many and the results are profound you must take the time to consider a few potential negative outcomes of giving so openly.

Charities are in the business of gathering donations and growing their member numbers as large as possible to achieve better and better ongoing results. So far so good. No one denies this is what charitable organizations do. But no matter how excited you are to get involved you need to look at all sides of the process and understand what all your options are.

This brings us to your privacy. Since most orgs. clearly want to grow their reach they may many times sell or share their lists of members to other organizations. such lists can include your personal information such as name, address, and possibly additional information you have provided. its quite possible that even if you only provide your name there are a growing number of easily accessible companies in the business of gathering and sell data collected with just your name. we wont get into how they achieve this but it isn't so difficult anymore with the advances in technology. Many of us may not be surprised about such actions in this day of big data along with the fact that we are tracked everyday by data services and consumer brands hoping to get a leg up in marketing to us.

That being said you should always be given the option by your chosen charity to "opt-out" of such information sharing programs. If a charity is on the up-and-up their site should provide a privacy policy for you to review prior to you getting further involved and providing your personal information.

Were not saying that giving your information is good or bad. All were urging you to do is to be aware of what each organizations privacy policy is and then you can determine if it's right for you. If the charity does not provide a privacy policy on their website contact them directly and push to ensure you get something in writing before you proceed.

Scott Davis runs and writes multiple websites and blogs and has several social sites about various topics

Sometimes the public doesn't see the less publicized side of the NFL; one that is typically all about the X's and O's.

Recently there were three noteworthy Oakland Raider players who made an appearance at a cause related event. They showed that the Raiders have turned a corner with admirable players as well as admirable citizens.

If these guys are any indication of the direction the team is going then the future is looking even brighter.

Three members of the current Oakland Raiders (future La Raiders?) Marcel Reece, Charles Woodson and Justin Tuck stood proud to represent what a Raiders player can be and strive to achieve beyond accomplishments on the gridiron.

The legendary work-ethic driven Safety Charles Woodson, Defensive End Justin Tuck and Full Back Marcel Reece offered a glimpse of what deal Raider/ citizens can look like when they showed up at a dinner event that championed a great cause - "Girls Incorporated of Alameda County®" (Girls Inc.). Girls Inc. achieves big things as a nonprofit organization that succeeds in engaging and motivating girls to be outstanding, smart, strong and bold and to accomplish whatever they can dream of.

Eighteen young women where highlighted for exceptional achievement and as a representation of what girls can rise to achieve, they each were active participants in the Girls College Access Now (CAN) program. These young women will be parting for their respective colleges just around the corner and the majority of them will be the very first person in their families to go to a major university. At the dinner celebration, Raiders Charles Woodson, Justin Tuck and Marcel Reece assisted the organization in recognizing the girls along with presenting each with well-deserved goodies such as computers, and other items an aspiring student may need as she goes off to school.

This was an occasion worth celebrating for many reasons and although it was a minor news story in the grander scheme of larger newsworthy events it spoke volumes about these Raiders players supporting an excellent cause for tomorrows women and the possibilities that await them.

These three athletes and rising model citizens have admirable personal credentials, on and off the field, and represent a new direction of leaders in the Raider family. Raiders owner Davis should be very pleased and proud of the men. An owner such as Marc Davis couldn't ask for more outside the football arena.

Charles Woodson has certainly accomplished a lot on and off the field. Hes won a Super Bowl with the Packers and now has his sights on leading the Riders to the same result. at the same time he takes the time o get involved with charitable giving and showing support for exceptional causes in his free time.

Marcel Reece is a guy that puts his head down and accomplishes what needs to be done as a player and now as a representative off the field for the raiders. He epitomizes the quintessential team player in all respects.

Justin Tuck is new to the Raider Organization but is clearly off on the right foot. He has a great reputation and his actions on and off the field are an inspiration to fellow Raiders teammates.

The Raiders are represented well in these three outstanding individuals. The 20215 season is shaping up to be an exciting season and these three are leading the way.